Like some of the games Irvine-based Interplay Entertainment Inc. used to produce, the company is shrouded in mystery these days.
A quarter after the video game developer said it wouldn’t be able to pay creditors, workers or its landlord, Interplay’s Web site is down. No one answers the phone. And Interplay’s stock, at about a penny, is emblematic of a company on the edge of bankruptcy.
About nine months ago, Interplay moved into a tiny executive office suite in Irvine under the landing path of John Wayne Airport. A secretary said no one from Interplay had been in the office for about two months. “But they do pay their rent,” she said.
Luke Haase, an Interplay spokesman, said the company still is open but “there are a lot of moving parts right now.”
Along with Chief Executive Herv & #233; Caen, who spends much of his time in Europe, there is a “core group of people” working at the company,” Haase said.
But the nail in the coffin of what once was one of Orange County’s most prominent game developers might rest across the Atlantic.
A French court recently declared Titus Interactive SA, the Paris-based game publisher that bought a controlling stake in Interplay in 2001, bankrupt.
Industry publication GameSpot quoted the judge overseeing the case as saying, “Titus was unable to finance any new games. There was no hope of financial rectification.”
The bankruptcy doesn’t cover subsidiaries such as Interplay, though the game developer appears to be suffering along with Titus.
The bankruptcy “will have an effect,” spokesman Haase said, declining to elaborate.
Interplay posted a $275 million loss in September, the last time it reported financial results. According to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Interplay had cash of $71,000 and accounts payable of $10.3 million.
“Unfortunately it had to end this way,” said founder Brian Fargo, who Titus ousted in 2002, not long after he tried to sell the company. “I had three buyers who were willing to pay in the hundreds of millions of dollars.”
That’s not to say Interplay has nothing of value. The company still has licenses,and royalties,for several games, including “Balder’s Gate,” a series of fantasy role-playing titles.
Interplay, a top 10 game publisher in the 1990s, traces its roots to 1979, when Fargo got an Apple II computer. Fargo called that his “internship as a nerd.”
In 1983, Interplay officially was launched in a 2,000-square-foot Costa Mesa office. The company made a mark with role-playing games for computers.
By 1995, video game consoles that link to TV sets were starting to eclipse games played on computers. So Fargo forged a deal to buy Laguna Beach’s Shiny Entertainment, a maker of console games.
Three years later, Interplay debuted in a ho-hum public offering. After that came game delays and losses.
By then, Redwood City-based Electronic Arts Inc. and other big names had come to dominate the business, squeezing smaller players such as Interplay.
In 2002, Titus, founded by Chief Executive Caen and brother Eric, bought a majority of Interplay.
Fargo now runs Newport Beach-based InXile Entertainment Corp. The company’s name is a subtle jab at his ouster from Interplay.
InXile has picked up the rights to a couple of games Fargo developed at Interplay: “Wasteland,” a 1980s cult classic, and “The Bard’s Tale,” a role-playing game.
Fargo said he wouldn’t be opposed to buying the Interplay name: “That makes a great story.”
In December, Interplay said it had signed a pact with Israel’s Majorem Technology at Play Ltd. to publish “Ballerium,” a game in which scores of players face off via the Internet.
But Majorem has had its own troubles. Last year, it suspended software development because of a lack of funding.
Another local game developer with ties to Interplay recently closed. Irvine’s Troika Games, started by developers who used to work at Interplay, packed it in last month after it was unable to get funding.
Troika created the hit game “Fallout,” which was marketed by Interplay.
